Hunters Don't Cry
by Lia76
Summary: When Bobby asks the brothers to take on a case for him, Sam is forced to confront a painful time in his childhood, learning that what's buried in your past can never stay there forever, especially when you have a brother like Dean. Sam's POV. WARNING: some references to child physical abuse.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

"Thank you for your help, Kaylee," I say with a gentle squeeze to her hand. "And it'll be okay, you'll see."

Shaking with adrenaline I stand up from the kitchen table to see Dean in the doorway. My mouth drops open and my heart starts to pound unbearably fast in my chest. Oh…my…God. Tell me he didn't hear us talking. Tell me he didn't hear _everything_.

Without warning, Dean suddenly charges at me, yanking me forward out of the kitchen and into the foyer, slamming me into the wall so hard that the picture hanging up next to me falls to the floor with a crash. He's grabbing me so tight around the collar now that I almost can't breathe. Dean glares at me, his eyes flashing and brimming with unshed tears.

"Tell me, Sammy," he growls into my ear, his voice low and tight with emotion. "Tell me that you made it up. That NONE of that happened. That you just told her all of that...stuff to get into her head."

"Dean," I finally am able to gasp and he lets up on my collar a bit, but only a bit.

"TELL ME THAT YOU MADE IT ALL UP!" Dean demands so loudly into my ear that I flinch.

Dean studies me, his face inches from mine, for another agonizingly long moment before he drops his grip, allowing me to finally gulp in the air. He steps back as if waiting for me to say something.

I don't.

I know I can't tell him want he wants to hear.

He backs up further toward the front door, his eyes bearing into me, into my soul, I guess. I don't know if he sees what he wants or not.

"I'm sorry," I finally mutter uselessly. And I am. I never wanted him to find out this way. Maybe never at all...

With a shake of his head, he turns around to storm out the front door, leaving it wide open. The late night breeze whips my hair around as I watch him get into the Impala and roar off. Knowing I'm not going to try and follow him, I numbly shut the door and for the first time notice that Kaylee is watching me from the kitchen doorway.

I feel weak and slide down to sit on the cold hardwood floor, drawing my knees to my chest. Without a word, she sits down next to me. I don't know how long we sit there in silence or what we are even waiting for.

We wait anyway.

**One Week Ago…**

"Hey, Bobby," Dean says cheerfully after answering his cell phone.

I look up from my laptop with interest, hoping the older man is calling just to say hello, although I highly doubted it.

After a few minutes of listening and nodding every few moments, Dean speaks again.

"Sure, Bobby. I remember him. He's missing? Was he on a hunt?" Dean asks as he sits down on one of the queen beds.

More nodding and more listening, I observe intently. My research on my laptop is abandoned as my curiosity in the phone call grows.

"Sure we'll take it for you. What do you know so far?" Dean asks and then listens some more. "You think we should start with his daughter?" Dean continues. "Kaylee. Okay, yeah, got it."

He listens to more directions from Bobby for at least another five minutes before hanging up.

"What's up?" I ask as I close my laptop.

"Bobby needs us on a job for him since he's tied up with another case. A hunter's missing," Dean explains as he begins to unsystematicaly toss his clothing into his worn duffle bag.

I smile and resist the urge to pull his clothing back out to fold it first. Typical Dean, whether he was in a hurry or not.

"Who?" I ask as I walk a few short steps into the bathroom to gather my stuff from the sink and shower.

"Wolfe. Mike Wolfe. You remember him?" Dean asks as he continues to grab his stuff.

My heart stops and I grab the sink to steady myself, glad that Dean can't see that I'm likely as white as a ghost now. _Mike Wolfe_? His name was the last one I expected to hear. Last one I _ever_ wanted to hear again.

"Come on, Sammy! Stop checking yourself out in the mirror and hurry your ass up!" Dean teases me with a laugh, but my attention is temporarily lost to one of many memories that I hoped would stay buried forever…

_"You know why he left you here…alone…with me, don't you?" the tall dark haired man with the light blue eyes asks me as he painfully clenches my shoulders, ignoring my attempts to wrench free. "He knows that you need a firm hand. He knows he doesn't have the stomach to do it, being your father and all. So I'm going to do it for him. Don't you get it, boy? He wants me to. For your own good. To make you a man. To make you a hunter."_

_I back up toward the wall, knowing full well I have no options left and nowhere to go..._

I close my eyes and swallow, willing myself to keep down my breakfast. I'm surprised how much hearing that name still affects me. It shouldn't. It was a long time ago and I could surely take him with one hand tied behind my back now. Just let him try...

"I said move it!" Dean repeats impatiently with a good natured squeeze to my shoulder. "I'll fill you in on the details in the car. We have a long drive ahead of us."

"I'm coming," I respond, ready or not.

Only God knows that here...


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I liked the rain, always have. When I was younger, I would even sit outside in the pouring rain sometimes, just to put a little space between me and Dad, physically and mentally. Now, driving in the Impala with Dean, it helped me tune him out while I tried to think.

I didn't know what would go down, what information would come out. Hell, I wasn't even sure how I felt about it all right now. Haven't thought about what happened back then…about him…for a very long time. Should I tell Dean now? Tell him later? Or not even tell him at all? Was I embarrassed about it all? Ashamed? Scared? None of the above? Maybe...just maybe I had been an overly sensitive kid and Wolfe was as great as everyone else thought he was?

Hmm…so interesting, well, mesmerizing really, how the rain drops splattering the windshield never slid down in the same path twice…

"Hey! Are you listening?" Dean barks at me.

I _had_ been listening for a while and had gotten the jist. Wolfe's girlfriend had been the one who had called Bobby, having become alarmed when he didn't come home as planned and didn't answer his cell. She didn't know it was Bobby she was calling, of course, but rather one of his multiple aliases through one of his multiple phone lines. To Wolfe's girlfriend, Bobby was a trucker friend that Wolfe had met along one of his routes. Had to hand it to Wolfe there. Long distance trucker was a great cover for the hunting life. Bobby had given her some excuse to appease her until we could get to the bottom of it all.

However, Wolfe's daughter Kaylee, adopted daughter actually, from his late wife who had died of cancer six years ago, was a hunter who had just started branching out on her own. Bobby therefore thought she would know more and suggested we start there first. Wolfe had raised Kaylee alone from the age of 15 after her mom passed. She was 21 now. He must have _made_ her become a hunter.

I shuddered to think about it. The time I spent with the man, "training" he called it…was nothing compared to having him as a father 24/7. I wondered if she didn't feel bad that Wolfe was missing, or further still, hoped he would never be found, which sounded cold, even to me. Whatever did or didn't happen, didn't matter. We had a job to do, and would do, for Bobby. I sighed and put on a smile for my brother.

"Sorry," I replied with as much sincerity as I could muster.

"I mean, come on, I'm giving you a rundown of the case! Remember that? The case? The reason we've been driving the whole freakin' night?" Dean said trying to sound pissed, but I knew he was really just tired. "I mean we owe Wolfe that much, how he took care of you and all when no one else could and you were to young to hunt with me and Dad."

I scoff loudly before I can stop myself, as another memory came to the surface...

_"I can feel it, you know...almost smell it even," he says into my ear. "You're scared...and you should be. You messed up tonight. Failed the test. I gave you plenty of chances, showed you plenty of times how to hold and shoot that rifle and you just let it fall in the dirt?!"_

_"It's heavy," I whimper pathetically and I instantly hate myself for admitting that, even though he can surely see my arms shaking with weariness._

_"Wouldn't be so heavy if you weren't so scrawny!" He shouts suddenly and I flinch. "You make me sick! How a great hunter like John puts up with you, especially with a good soldier like Dean around! SICK!"_

_I close my eyes, knowing what's coming next. What always comes next when he starts to yell...when I disappoint him...why can't I just get it right? A new jolt of fear shoots through me when I realize tears are starting to fall! NO!_

_"Don't...you hear me? Don't you dare cry! Hunters don't cry!"_

"What?" Dean asked with obvious confused anger, interrupting my thoughts.

I run my hand over my face.

"Nothing. Just tired," I answer, knowing it would be so much easier if I did just tell Dean.

I sigh again and resume looking out the window at the rain drops and inky darkness, wishing the horrible memories could get just swallowed up in it all.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"3:35 AM," I mutter as I quickly glance at my phone with a yawn. I'm driving now, having taken over from Dean who was now passed out in the Impala's back seat. The rain had stopped, but the puddles of moisture still lingered on the warm roadway eerily misting up in steam now and again.

We would be at Wolfe's to meet Kaylee in less than six hours, our only stop so far about three hours ago for a much needed break at a 24 hour place. Although I would hardly call what we ate food, Dean eagerly ate his burger and fries and then gobbled up what was left of mine as well.

While driving the last two hours, I had had a lot of time to think and decided that I could and would easily ignore my history with Wolfe and proceed as I would with any other case. We were all adults now. So what if he had questionable "methods"? Dad certainly did from time to time. Maybe some would even label him a child abuser, raising his kids into the hunting life.

I sigh for the millionth time and mulled over the final facts Dean told me at dinner that I must have missed earlier during our drive. When Bobby had phoned Kaylee to give her a heads up that we were coming, she hadn't seemed too concerned about Wolfe. Hunts don't usually follow a time line, I agree, but a week and a half late with no contact? Bobby told her that missing hunters always warranted a house call and she had okayed us coming to visit to offer any assistance.

I yawned again and knew I could safely drive no further without another break. Sure we had taken many all-nighters before, but we had just come off a hunt ourselves and we already running on fumes. I pulled over to the shoulder and parked under the streetlight. Just a few minutes break…just a few minutes…

"_Sam, you know you can't hide from me. It's only a matter of time. But I do hope you at least make it interesting," Wolfe taunts from the hallway._

_He was toying with me while he did a typical grid perimeter search of the downstairs of his house with the lights out, but I knew what he was doing. Dad had taught us well. I would get away. I would run and call Dean and Dad and I would never have to come back again. I bit my lip as I set my plan for my exit. He wouldn't expect me to go back down the hallway to the front door. I looked around carefully from my spot behind the table and fingered the small stones I had pocketed earlier that afternoon. I didn't see anything. Deciding now was the time, I threw the stones as far as I could. Their sharp edges echoed on the tile in the kitchen and I heard him run in that direction. Sensing my chance, I darted out fast, Dad always said I was fast for a little kid, and dashed down the hallway. I was almost there! Just one more step as I reached for the doorknob…_

"_Tsk, tsk," Wolfe said as he jumped in front of me and grabbed my wrist, squeezing so hard I fell to my knees in absolute agony. _

"_You really think you could outsmart me?"Wolfe asks as he flipped on the lights. "Think again. Guess we have more training to do, Sam," he swings me hard by the wrist, twisting it painfully in the process, and I'm thrown into the wall as if I weigh nothing at all. My heart begins to pound as he grabs me by both hands now and starts shaking…shaking…_

"_Sam! Sammy!"_

I'm jolted awake, heart still pounding, and it takes me a moment to realize it's Dean shaking me and he's swung me half out of the driver's side door. I'm still in the Impala? I'm still in the Impala. I didn't even remember falling asleep.

"Quit shaking me, Dean!"

I push him away to get enough room to stand. I stride away from the Impala to get my bearings. I try to take a deep breath without my brother noticing to slow my still pounding heart. A freakin' nightmare? About Wolfe? I was beyond pissed at myself. Here I had thought I had compartmentalized it all once again and I'm betrayed by my sub-conscious? Why does it all still matter? It was years ago!

"Jesus, Sammy," Dean exclaims as he comes up next to me. "You scared the crap out of me."

I couldn't see his face in the dark any better than I could see Wolfe's that night in my dream. "You haven't had nightmares like that since…since after Jessica died."

"Sorry I woke you up," I answer, unable to think of a more intelligent answer at that moment.

He puts his hand on my shoulder and it takes every ounce of my being not to shake him off. I pray that he can't feel that I'm still shaking a bit from the adrenaline.

"You know I don't care about that," Dean answers as he gently pulls me back toward the Impala.

He takes the driver seat this time.

"It's still my turn to drive," I remind him.

He ignores me and I get in the passenger side reluctantly.

"You want to talk about it?" Dean asks me sincerely.

I sigh…again…and run a hand over my face…again, both becoming bad habits lately.

"I don't remember what it was about," I decide to answer.

He looks at me closely, a puzzled look on his face now.

"You're lying," he replies with a bit of surprise in his face. "Why?"

"Can we just get going, please?" I ask impatiently as I close the passenger door. "Is it a crime to have bad dreams now?"

The scrutiny like only Dean can do with me was making me _very_ uncomfortable. It lasted for another _agonizing_ moment before he spoke again.

"Fine," he answers as he pulled the driver's door shut and starts the car. "We do have to keep going. We'll talk about it later. "

I don't ask him if that's a threat or a promise. I know it's the latter.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I downed the last of my 20 ounce coffee, long since cold, as I watched Wolfe's house, still surrounded by acres of green hills, finally rise into view. Sure, the place was a different color now, with newer siding, shutters and landscaping, but I recognized it easily enough. Rolling up to it in the Impala, it felt eerily similar to the many times decades before when Dad and Dean had brought me there. No, correction, Sam thought bitterly. _Left_ me there.

"You coming?" Dean asked impatiently.

I hadn't even noticed that he had parked and was already standing outside the car. I shook my head in agreement and followed him up the long winding brick path to the large front door. As my brother rang the doorbell, I reminded myself that none of what happened in the past mattered now in the present. A moment later, the door opened and a twenty something year old tall girl with shoulder length blonde opened the door. She smiled, but something in my gut told me it was not one hundred percent genuine.

"You must be Sam and Dean. I'm Kaylee. Come on in," she said as she stepped aside so we could enter. "Have a seat in the living room. Coffee?"

"Sure," Dean and I both answer, even though we are both already pretty jacked up on caffeine. Old habits die hard, I guess.

As we wait for her to return with the java, Dean and I slowly walk around the living room, he likely lost in old memories too. However, I doubt any of his are _anything_ like mine. I glance at numerous photos hanging on walls, most containing a smiling younger version of Kaylee with another woman whom I assume was her mother, newer photos that are likely of his girlfriend who called Bobby, and a couple of Wolfe and some others whom I assume are hunters. Everything looks normal enough, like any other house in any other town. Looks so much different inside than when I was here. Kaylee and her mother must have really had a good impact on Wolfe. I take my place next to Dean on the couch when she returns with coffee and much to Dean's delight, three slices of apple pie.

"Thank you," Dean says enthusiastically as he takes a coffee mug and a plate.

"You're welcome," she replies with another smile. "And thank you both for coming."

"Happy to help in any way that we can to find your dad," I reply as I take just the coffee.

"_Step_-dad," she corrects me a little more firmly than necessary, before smiling again.

"Right," Dean says with his mouth full, obviously too distracted by the homemade dessert to notice. "Tell us about the case he was working and anything else you can think of."

She begins to describe Wolfe's latest hunt, a nest of vampires about a day's drive from here, but my mind is the one that wanders this time. I just can't get over how _weird_ it feels to be in Wolfe's house again, especially without Wolfe. In his freakin' house on his freakin' couch. I remember the last time I was seated on his couch under very different circumstances, after Wolfe had caught me trying to hitch a ride a half a mile from his house. I had been so naïve…thinking I could somehow get to a phone…

"_I mean really, Sam? Running away? Like I wouldn't immediatley notice you were gone?" Wolfe asked as he shook his head in disbelief. "You didn't even try to disable me…or cause a distraction. Not very smart…not very smart at all."_

_I'm frozen in place on the couch, mind racing. I realize I was pretty stupid and he had some good points there. NO, no! I had to stay focused. I had to figure out my next move…_

"_I can actually see you thinking, Sam." Wolfe said as he sat down next to me and put his arm around my shoulder. _

_He pulled me to him tightly, immobilizing my arms against my chest, making it difficult to breathe. "You need to be quicker on your feet. Have a plan A, B and C, because you never know what the enemy is going to do. Now, of course I'm not your enemy, Sam. I'm your teacher. Just like your dad wants me to be. He wants me to get you ready to hunt with him and Dean. You want that too, don't you?"_

"_Let me go," I whimper and I mentally kick myself, knowing I sounded pathetic. "When I tell my dad and Dean...they'll get you!"_

_Wolfe smiles and turns to whisper in my ear._

"_This is your fourth visit here," Wolfe reminded me before getting up and releasing me. "You could have told them after the first time…or before any of the other three times. But you haven't. And you KNOW why. You're afraid to hear them say it. Confirm that you need to be here…to learn from someone like me…with different methods…or else they can't ever trust you to have their backs."_

_I gulp in the air as I consider his words, if I believed any of what he said. No, No! I can't believe it! I jump up from the couch and fall immediately to the floor. I stare in disbelief that I hadn't even noticed Wolfe roped my feet together. Tears well up in my eyes…boy, I really am stupid. How will I ever be ready to go on a hunt…to protect my brother and father…when I can't even protect myself from one man? I immediately begin working to untie the elaborate knot, when I hear a sound of something hitting the floor. I look up and my breath hitches again when I see that Wolfe has returned with something in his hand. No...no, not the whip…_

"Sam!" Dean yells at me suddenly and pulls up at my wrist. I realize in horror that I have just tilted and spilled my entire cup on the floor when I was lost in thought.

"Jeez. I'm so sorry, Kaylee," I apologize. "I'll go get something to clean this up."

"Don't worry about it," she says, smiling again, and this time it seemed real. "I don't get upset over something like that. Just sit tight."

After she leaves, Dean glares at me in that scrutinizing way again.

"What's going on with you?" he whispers.

I am saved having to answer him when she returns with a damp dish rag. Leaning down to dab at the carpet, her shirt pulls up a bit in the back before she yanks it back down, but not before I see the wide faint red scar on her back. Old hunting injury? Maybe. But I suddenly another thought punches me in the gut and I'm shocked that I didn't think of it sooner…maybe, just maybe her turning to the hunter lifestyle had not only been Wolfe's decision, but that he had done so through methods as harsh as those I experienced...or maybe worse.


End file.
